Delphi Technologies wanted a clear answer to a deceptively difficult question: what does good leadership look like here?
The ambition was to create a leadership north star genuinely rooted in the company’s strategic priorities and TIER values — not a generic competency framework imported from somewhere else. It needed to describe the behaviours that would strengthen the high-performance culture Delphi wanted to create, as well as those that might undermine it.
MJA began with discovery. Leadership interviews and wider research were analysed to identify recurring themes and translate them into an emerging framework. External examples provided challenge and perspective, but the organising logic came from Delphi itself.
The Executive Leadership Team then became part of the design process. Draft capabilities and behaviours were displayed around the room and leaders rotated through them in small groups: challenging the language, testing whether each capability really meant what it claimed to mean, identifying what resonated and asking what was still missing.
The resulting architecture included capabilities such as enterprise thinking, innovation, customer and market focus, candour, accountability, collaboration, trust, talent and adaptability. Importantly, the behavioural expectations changed with organisational level, so the framework could describe development rather than simply label performance.
The intention was always bigger than a leadership document. The capabilities were designed to connect with talent acquisition, performance, learning, progression and reward so that the organisation reinforced a coherent view of leadership through the employee lifecycle.
The framework gained value because leaders could recognise their own organisation inside it. Ownership came through the inquiry, the debate and the connection to real organisational decisions — not simply from elegant wording.